To be a good citizen

Of all the characters in photographs from the book A People War that we wanted to follow-up on for the sequel, People After War, Gajendra Laudari was the most difficult to find.

Gajendra was an economics student at Tribhuvan University when the pro-democracy protests swept Kathmandu in April 2006. The university grounds on the slopes below Kirtipur were the hot bed of protests. The demonstrations were gathering strength: people were fed up with the war, and they felt Gyanendraâs efforts to turn the clock back to the days of absolute monarchy were endangering peace and democracy.

On 4 April, police were firing tear gas shells at stone-throwing students when police deputy-superintendent Sharad Chand was felled by a brick. The police withdrew because they had run out of tear gas shells, and the students ran to where Chand was and started bludgeoning him. A student sat astride the prostrate policeman and saved him from being lynched.

Sundar Shrestha was among the photographers who were taking pictures from some distance away, and his image of Gajendra sitting on top of Chand trying to save him from his fellow-students and Chand holding upÂ his hand as if asking for help, was splashed on the front page of the newspaper the next morning. The photograph came to represent and symbolise the courage of one student not just to join the pro-democracyÂ protests (most people were doing that) but to bravely stand up to ensure that the protests were peaceful.

But Gajendra disappeared. Try as we might to identify him in A People War, we couldnât. Three years later, in 2009 when People After War was going to press, we tried one more time. An article appeared in Kantipur in Feburary 2009 titled âWho is this man?â accompanying Sundar Shresthaâs photograph. A friend of Gajendra saw the article and rang up the reporter to say he had gone back to teach in his home village in Tanahu, a steep three-hour climb from the highway.

Reporter Santosh Pokhrel travelled from Pokhara to interview him, where the soft-spoken and modest Gajendra told him: âI felt I couldnât allow myself to just watch a human being beaten to death. Anyone in my placeÂ would have done the same.â But that was precisely the point: no one else in his place came to rescue the fallen policeman, only Gajendra did.

Gajendra Laudari speaks about the day the photograph was taken when it was exhibited in Damauli recently.

A few months ago, we got to Damauli of Tanahu for the exhibition of the photographs from A People War. On the way, we picked up Gajendra in Dumre, and travelled to Damauli together.

He gave us a more detailed account of what had happened that day in Kirtipur. âActually, I wasnât at the forefront of the demonstration, I was watching from the side. When the policeman fell, a friend of mine hitÂ him in the leg with a stick and another student hit him with a broken brick, gouging his eye.â

At the exhibition, Gajendra points at the broken brick in the studentâs hand that has blood on it, which I hadnât noticed before even though I curated the book.

Gajendra looked at the other pictures from the war hanging in the District Administration Office Hall in Damauli and shook his head. âWar and violence do different things to different people, you do things you never thought you were capable of,â Gajendra told me, “To tell you honestly, I wasnât thinking about being brave or making a point for non-violent struggle, I saw a human being harmed and I acted to save him without thinking.â

Gajendra said the students were milling about, saying they should kill the policeman. He knew that the violence would escalate if that happened, and prove Home Minister Kamal Thapa right. Thapa had beenÂ saying that the Maoists had infiltrated the protesters. As a high school student Gajendra had wanted to be a policeman himself to âclean up the polluted politicsâ, perhaps that was a factor in him coming to ChandâsÂ rescue.

After saving the policeman, Chand was taken away by American volunteer doctor Brian Cobb in an ambulance. Gajendra found himself caught up in a police baton charge and, ironically, the man who had saved a policemanâs life was himself beaten up by policemen.

Gajendra is convinced the only salvation for Nepal is though proper education that nurtures a new generation of Nepalis with a keen sense of civic duty and responsibility. âThat is why I became a teacher,â heÂ says, âand I just wanted to be a good citizen.â

You both have done great job- the hero in the photograph, the symbol of peaceful protest that represent inner voice of most of we Nepali; and the person (or an entire team) tirelessly spent many days to find the here!

David Seddon: micro hydro has enormous potential & is not SO expensive that it cannot be a local/national investment – time to assess impact

namah: water, wind, sun – we have it all – except that magic ingredient – perseverance – to get it all working together…

Arya Green: end of the war has not meant peace. The roots of the conflict are still there. As long as people are hungry, there will be war.

Radha Krishna Deo: Thanks to Mr. Dixit for Valuable article on grave Concern but without changing our attitude to relif, Rehab the problem or Impact in future canot be minmized. It should be National agenda for Planning Comission and Ministry of finces to support the issues already traced by various agency and Authors in past one decade. Check our system for followings. 1.Fiscal years start in shrawn where floods and landslides are more and more concern authorities become nervous for adequate budget and rescue materials for relief, 2.A poll of scientist and Engineers are available and partially unemployed where spoting the hazard prone area not yet started either for flood or landsled report shows about 300 death encounter almost every years 3.Yet citizen are not restricted by law even in hazard prone localities. SACNEPAl

Yuvraj: Lier fraud Katwal ! To whom he was calling on his whole way when he was going to and from Baluwatar ? Certainly the Indian agency men. The then govt had full right to terminate him. A soldier without shame !!

iceean: It’s good step by General I guess.The priority of the government was to make constitution at that particular moment. Over ambition and the hunger to conquer power lead the failure of the PM.Thank you for sharing. BTW when the book will be available in the market.

kobid: Prime minister is not above the law. The interim constitution that time had no provision to remove the then General. Chief of staff is not a position of political appointment. History is created by everyone but only few are revered and remembered. Well done General for saving the tradition of a professiinal army !

Reader: wonder what the memoir is all ab0ut, disobeying elected prime minister’s oder (Prachanda was 1 than), i guess democracy is for few who can make history out of any trival inicidence that would not have benifited country in any manner.

kobid: Replying to Sanjeev Pandey If Mr. Pandey thinks everyone who is appointed by Maoists are maoists I have nothing to say on his infancy. If you better understand the chain of command in security forces, Gen. Katwal was right to ask and thunder Kul Bahadur for meeting PM office without reporting and approval. Army chief commmands security and force protects its chief, a driver was shot on sight for driving straight on whitehouse, everyone knows a ram-car can’t breech the security but there are no excuses. If its chief is tried to be taken as a hostage, is tried to be overpowered or bonded any army will and should protect its chief regardless of the cost. The moral of the army lies in its glory and fearlessness along with binding element of discipline.

Sunjeev Pandey: Gen Kul Bdr Khadka is a Maoist? Give me a break. He held many of the top commands during the war, generally right after Katwal did. But we need to believe that the second man was a Maoist. Katawal said the NA couldn’t take a single ex-PLA sepoy for integration because it would allow the Maoists to subvert the organisation and capture the state, but the second man in the army is a Maoist? That’s no problem, until you need an excuse to topple an elected government. Katawal was insubordinate and a law unto himself, as proven by turning up at Baluwatar with two trucks of commandos. Remember, he planned to surround and destroy the the UCPN-M party office in Kathmandu with special forces, in response to a low level kidnapping a few days before the 2008 election, and didn’t inform PM Koirala.

Sandhya Sharma: Dear Mr. Dixit/ Hansen, Now we know that the photographer had not taken the consent of the family to take the picture, let alone publish it, how can it not be an ethical issue? In Nepal, the funeral is public so that people can come and mourn with a family.Not to take picture and publish it. Please learn and respect the culture of the country you are visiting. How would you feel when there is a death in your family and some one took the pictures and published it without your knowledge?

Ram Sapkota: A well and live example of local democracy leaders. I am very impressed with the way he (Bhim Uncle) communicate, deal with problems and support to people. I hope our new developed democracy practice will introduce more examples in every village and cities of the country…. I want to wish very luck to him for more success and goodwill in future as well…..

Jan MĂžller Hansen: Dear commentators, I fully understand your reactions and feelings. I was far away for the scene and had no interference what so ever. I was not the only one who took a photo. But it raises a lot of ethical questions about photography. I don’t believe and feel that the photo shows disrespect for the mother or family – on the contrary, one feels with the grieving mother. As a viewer one connects with the mother and the family. People whom I have never met wrote to me and told me their personal stories of death in the close family – they wanted to share their feelings long after it happened. Every day one see images from around the world with tragedy, sorrow and death. I think it’s part of our life as human beings. I understand your sentiments – but as a photographer I shot what I see. It was an important moment that I could not let go.

Deepak Shrestha: I hope the one who posted this picture got consent from the family in the picture. RIP

TD: As much as photography is a powerful story-telling tool, I cannot help but wonder what happens to the subjects of the photograph after a nice gallery exhibition has been organized. It makes me think of Facebook activism that is so rampant these days when people seem to believe that just ‘liking’ a photograph can bring change. I’m sure the photographer has good intentions, but taking pictures of the suffering and making a public exhibition of it is actually demeaning if you aren’t actively doing something concrete about it. I hope in the future to hear more stories of how he is helping the lives of the subjects he captures, now that would be genuinely inspiring.

ap: six responses. none of them in favor of the photographer, nor the editor…something Kunda should respond to…ethics, privacy, dignity…where are we going with these?